Colin Johanson has just made a post on the official forums updating the community about the loot/drop investigation.

Since the community was still reporting issues with the drops they were getting, ArenaNet took another look at the issue. It appears they found the problem:

The rules by which you qualify for credit for an event or for experience when killing a mob are different rules than those used to help determine if you qualify for loot. Some of these were set up to be unintentionally restrictive, and as such you could kill a creature with a lot of health (this was most noticeable on champions) and not qualify for loot, despite qualifying for all other credit.

Once fixed, all champion mobs will correctly always drop 1 blue or better loot item, and all veterans will have a chance of dropping loot better than regular mobs as outlined in the November release. Please note, it is still possible to kill a creature and not do enough damage to qualify for loot (which is the only way you won’t get loot for a champion), it is also still possible for veterans to not drop loot at all, since they simply have better odds of dropping loot than normal creatures but no guaranteed drops.

He goes on to say that they will repair the issue with the February patch drops and not only that, but they plan to make specific areas more rewarding for the players. We'll see more information when the February patch notes are published.

I just think it is ridiculous to solo a lvl 80 veteran PLUS like four "grunts" and get crap. I'm sure I'm not alone in soloing mobs for a while before finally being defeated and getting very little for the effort. I would at least like the drops to equal the cost of repairing my armor. Just sayin' [size=4] [/size]

[quote name='sambombe' timestamp='1361223999' post='2166205']
Loot reward based in damage imput??? WTF Anet, what an epic fail. What about the support professions/build, that keep spamming boons for the party and does not sufficient damage??
[/quote]

Exactly, I am a mesmer and I often cast AoE boons and AoE conditions to help melee (Time Warp anyone?).

[quote name='Kymeric' timestamp='1361224683' post='2166215']
I'd like to point out to Colin that blue items in this game are pretty much vendor trash. Greens sell so cheaply, they are the baseline gear.

Shouldn't significant contribution to a Champion kill at least warrant a green?
[/quote]

While I can see that you must also understand just how easy it is to get a champ to kill, if the minimum is a green and you stay in queensdale for awhile a rare or better wouldnt be hard to come by in return for little work.

[quote name='Asha2012' timestamp='1361224278' post='2166211']
Exactly, I am a mesmer and I often cast AoE boons and AoE conditions to help melee (Time Warp anyone?).
[/quote]

It's not like you had to kill the mob all by yourself though. As I read it, you'll have to cross a certain damage threshold and then you'll get the same loot chance as everyone else. As the system is rather lenient with group event rewards, I'd expect it to do the same for loot drops now.
After all, even if you really focus on handing out boons or whatever, you will have to auto attack alot in the meantime, so you'll probably get rewarded anyway. I do hope the rewards are scaled up for veterans in fractals etc. as well though...

[quote name='SnowmanRelic' timestamp='1361225030' post='2166220']
While I can see that you must also understand just how easy it is to get a champ to kill, if the minimum is a green and you stay in queensdale for awhile a rare or better wouldnt be hard to come by in return for little work.
[/quote]
I do agree with Kymeric that blue drops do seem a bit lowly. However, you're right SnowmaRelic, if they up the drop, people will just camp champions like crazy. Remember, it starts at blue, so the chance of getting green is good, and yellow is also quite likely.

First guild missions, and the TP preview, and now this. This will be the best patch so far.

Problem isn`t in getting the credit for the kill (thus loot itself) but it`s much more irritating then that, LOOT is pathetic to say the least !!!

The thing Anet should do is make drop rates MUCH bigger (that 0.005% they keep adding is just joke) i mean 1 hour per Lodestone in full MF gear ? Even rare items lately salvaged with Black Lion Salvage Kit don`t yield Ecto anymore (every 3rd does) like 1 max 2 !
I mean there is so much wrong with loot in this game that is hard to list all problems, saying that loot is bad is just such a HUGE understatement !!!!

My biggest concern is some players might not get enough damage to qualify for loot (like say, a condition necro who can't get any damage in on a Champion because 30 other people are attacking it and every condition is already maxed). I'd like some clarification on how they address condition damage as contributing to a fight.

[quote name='HawkofStorms' timestamp='1361225962' post='2166230']
My biggest concern is some players might not get enough damage to qualify for loot (like say, a condition necro who can't get any damage in on a Champion because 30 other people are attacking it and every condition is already maxed). I'd like some clarification on how they address condition damage as contributing to a fight.
[/quote]

I can't think of very many 1-5 powers in the game that apply conditions and don't inflict direct damage. I have a feeling the "damage for credit" threshold takes this into account.

I'm an opinionated son of a gun! Feel free to visit my blog, "Tales from the Void: Adventures in gaming whilst siezing Saidin"http://omedon.tumblr.com/

[quote name='HawkofStorms' timestamp='1361225962' post='2166230']
My biggest concern is some players might not get enough damage to qualify for loot (like say, a condition necro who can't get any damage in on a Champion because 30 other people are attacking it and every condition is already maxed). I'd like some clarification on how they address condition damage as contributing to a fight.
[/quote]

Actually, they should really address condition damage as a whole. After all, the lack of contribution for rewards is only a symptom of the lack of damage.

It's always a weird feeling when months after it was reported by players, the devs come along stating they just have found out that there is a problem how mob tagging awards loot. But awesome that it finally gets fixed.

[quote name='Omedon' timestamp='1361226300' post='2166236']
I can't think of very many 1-5 powers in the game that apply conditions and don't inflict direct damage. I have a feeling the "damage for credit" threshold takes this into account.
[/quote]

They do apply laughable damage in full condition gear though, and afaik, the damage for credit threshold only looks for raw damage done, no matter the source or how many stacks a target might have still on it when it dies.

[quote name='sambombe' timestamp='1361223999' post='2166205']
Loot reward based in damage imput??? WTF Anet, what an epic fail. What about the support professions/build, that keep spamming boons for the party and does not sufficient damage??
[/quote]

Exactly, just silly and lazy they made it that way, only damage counts meaning warrior = best chance of the best loot and every other profession has a lower chance because of less damage...

Completely stupid system.

Also, im sure others will disagree and I do admit I have zero proof and is completely speculation on my part, I think these "accidental restrictions" stories are complete and utter bullshit. Personally and again its just my opinion, I believe they put the "accidental loot restrictions" into the game intentionally but after seeing how noticable it was, with the rage coming from the community, Anet did what they seem to do best, back peddle and cover it up while making up some story to save face...

Im guessing they did not expect the restrictions to be as obvious as they were, also all the players who kept saying "your just getting bad rng" well that kind of shows that was utter rubbish in most cases.

Just a thought but I find it extremely hard to believe with Anets track history of diminishing returns, past restrictions and the ability they have of saying one thing but later going back on it....I find it extremely hard to believe they just "accidentily caused restrictions" that just accidentily effected the way loot / rewards were working and that just happend to be less than it was before....

Anet you are becoming masters at the new sport of back peddling bad design decisions while trying to make yourselves smell of roses.

Sorry if this sounds harsh but as said, I find it extremely hard to believe considering recent events from devolepment to launch to 6 months later...to say this was an accident or mistake made to the game build....sorry I do not buy it.
[quote name='Alex Dimitri' timestamp='1361225733' post='2166229']
Even rare items lately salvaged with Black Lion Salvage Kit don`t yield Ecto anymore (every 3rd does) like 1 max 2 !
I mean there is so much wrong with loot in this game that is hard to list all problems, saying that loot is bad is just such a HUGE understatement !!!!
[/quote]

Thats another thing, some say it's all in people's heads but honestly, there seems to be a change in ecto rates when salvaging, its alot less of a chance then it used to be, how did "accidental restrictions" cause that? Have they investigated that by any chance?

Whole story just seems like a PR department trying to spin a bad business / design choice.

[quote name='sambombe' timestamp='1361223999' post='2166205']
Loot reward based in damage imput??? WTF Anet, what an epic fail. What about the support professions/build, that keep spamming boons for the party and does not sufficient damage??
[/quote]

Agreed. They highlight how the game is built around damage, support, and control roles. Yet in the end it often comes down to damage. It would be nice if I cast an AOE might buff, I get some fraction of the credit for damage people do while under the buff. Or heals give me some fractional credit for damage done with that extra health. Ok, we're talking a quickly complicating equation here, but it could be simplified. For example:

Something like that. And obviously some things would be harder to formulate. How much credit to give immobilize or PBAoE which has no CONSISTENT straightforward affect on group damage output?

[quote name='Eon Lilu' timestamp='1361226622' post='2166246']
Just a thought but I find it extremely hard to believe with Anets track history of diminishing returns, past restrictions and the ability they have of saying one thing but later going back on it....I find it extremely hard to believe they just "accidentilty caused restrictions" that just accidentily effected the way loot / rewards were working and that just happend to be less than it was before....
[/quote]

While I am not saying this is not possible. This is a complex game. It is not always obvious how changes in one part of the code might affect other parts of the code. And some of these issue don't get discovered until a larger number of people are hitting that code. It likely isn't as simple as some spreadsheet with a value plugged in a clearly labelled as "loot restriction coefficient." Sometimes you have to look in 20 different places to see how one piece of code functions. So "Oops" is just as likely as "BS."

Agreed. They highlight how the game is built around damage, support, and control roles. Yet in the end it often comes down to damage. It would be nice if I cast an AOE might buff, I get some fraction of the credit for damage people do while under the buff. Or heals give me some fractional credit for damage done with that extra health. Ok, we're talking a quickly complicating equation here, but it could be simplified. For example:

Or a more simplistic way of calculating credit for heal/ regeneration or ressing a downed player could be considering the 'heal' as if it were damage done to a foe. So if we drop an AoE heal on 5 players and heal them for a total of 3K health, then that gets equivalent credit to 3K damage dealt to a foe. This is easily done with DEs with just one big boss. But I see confounding difficulty in working it out fairly in DEs with lots of trash mobs.

Same goes for ressing downed players...obvious green numbers pop up in the process of ressing and that can likewise be added up to credit. Healing on self does not count towards the credit. Doing this could put some altruistic type builds and players in the lead in DEs, so if we wanted to reduce the effectiveness of this, then add a modifier. Healing/ regeneration is also self-limiting to a certain extent because we can't spam heal on allies that are already at full health. So if somebody tries to abuse it by blasting a water field twice to allies that are already at full health, he/ she gets zero credit for the action.

Admittedly though, giving credit for control/ snares is more difficult. I don't see how it can be easily done.

On another note, the threads that I've been reading lately have shown a strong skew in preference towards builds and professions with the highest DPS, and I'm hardly surprised. Damage IS good and offense can be the best defense. It sidelines 'support' builds which is sad, but once again plainly unavoidable in the game's current state. I'm thinking very hard these days about how to pull more damage out of a 'support' build, because we can't go full 'support'. We have to do some damage as well. However, does this 'balancing' risk watering down a build and reducing its effectiveness one way or another? The idea of 'balance' is fast becoming a thing of the past. We either have to build supremely aggressively or very defensively to be at our best.

Sounds like typical Anet BS. We got the same story for the dye nerf. It's getting old. Look how fast they fixed the unintentional increased drop rate on dyes which most likely occurred as a result of trying to nerf it. Now it's wait until the end of February for the "fix" to crap loot drops. It is unclear whether this will effect drop rates from all mobs or just vets and champions. The pathetic drop rate of pathetic loot occurs across all mobs and in WvW as well. They say it will still possible to kill a vet and get no loot. This is a fix?

They went from admitting that drop rates were "abysmal" to what appeared to be two different stealth nerfs. The end result of a fix should be somewhere above "abysmal" not below it. This looks like the old Blizzard tactic of over-nerfing something then buffing it back up halfway "in response to player input" when in fact they never buff it above what it was before.

Every retailer knows this trick: raise prices 30 percent on an item and then have a 20 percent off sale. Everyone thinks they are getting a bargain when in fact they are paying 10 percent more than they should.

This fix is welcomed, but I believe it will still be insufficient. The amount of time required to kill a champion dwarfs the amount of time needed to kill regular mobs, and often requires several people working on it at once. Rewards of one blue (or better) for killing a champion is an insult when you could easily get 10 times that by killing regular mobs in the same amount of time. I would much rather they increased the spawn time and increased the loot drops on champions to be more in line with the effort required to bring them down. Champions should never drop anything less than greens, and should drop at least 2 items for killing them to be worthwhile in my view.

Lol. I noticed that the loot and kill credit were seperate and dependant on damage as soon as I hit Cursed Shore with non-maxed armor. Switch to exotics though and its irrelevant. This damage threshold is too high because the desparity between being fully spec'd and not is night and day, and only gets amplified when you are downleveled. Not really a bug. But saying so makes the sheep sleep better at night.

Every retailer knows this trick: raise prices 30 percent on an item and then have a 20 percent off sale. Everyone thinks they are getting a bargain when in fact they are paying 10 percent more than they should.

Your maths are off, though I agree with the spirit of your argument
A 30% increase followed by a 20% decrease would actually amount to a 4% increase over all. The percentages are not additive but are instead multiplicative.

Or a more simplistic way of calculating credit for heal/ regeneration or ressing a downed player could be considering the 'heal' as if it were damage done to a foe. So if we drop an AoE heal on 5 players and heal them for a total of 3K health, then that gets equivalent credit to 3K damage dealt to a foe. This is easily done with DEs with just one big boss. But I see confounding difficulty in working it out fairly in DEs with lots of trash mobs.

Same goes for ressing downed players...obvious green numbers pop up in the process of ressing and that can likewise be added up to credit. Healing on self does not count towards the credit. Doing this could put some altruistic type builds and players in the lead in DEs, so if we wanted to reduce the effectiveness of this, then add a modifier. Healing/ regeneration is also self-limiting to a certain extent because we can't spam heal on allies that are already at full health. So if somebody tries to abuse it by blasting a water field twice to allies that are already at full health, he/ she gets zero credit for the action.

Admittedly though, giving credit for control/ snares is more difficult. I don't see how it can be easily done.

On another note, the threads that I've been reading lately have shown a strong skew in preference towards builds and professions with the highest DPS, and I'm hardly surprised. Damage IS good and offense can be the best defense. It sidelines 'support' builds which is sad, but once again plain avoidable in the game's current state. I'm thinking very hard these days about how to pull more damage out of a 'support' build, because we can't go full 'support'. We have to do some damage as well. However, does this 'balancing' risk watering down a build and reducing its effectiveness one way or another? The idea of 'balance' is fast becoming a thing of the past. We either have to build supremely aggressively or very defensively to be at our best.

Good argument. But I think, imho, it is just not by design.
The game has only 1 concept and that is dps.
All Characters are primarily dps, and then support. There is no such thing as contribution for support because there is no such role placed in game.

Simply put do you think a Mesmer should get contribution for say placing a bubble and activating stealth?
Or a thief putting aoe stealth or snares.
Maybe a permer block/parry/dodge guardian but not attacking?

Your maths are off, though I agree with the spirit of your argument
A 30% increase followed by a 20% decrease would actually amount to a 4% increase over all. The percentages are not additive but are instead multiplicative.

Right you are. I didn't think the math through. That would make a good SAT question

The damage threshold for events is so low that auto attacking alone will net you enough damage to get gold medal, so i wouldn't expect support based builds to suffer.

if they counted loot based on support then you'd likely find say a warrior camping a place with for great justice on auto attck while they are in range of allies but in a place they cant get hit to afk farm karma, gold and loot from events.